Black Alice
One of the so-called Warlords of Detroit, Black Alice rose to power through a series of events that were largely beyond her control. None the less, she proved herself both as a warrior and a leader, and would help shape the Detroit Wasteland for years to come. History From her birth, circumstances were against Alice Karoly. She was born into a small community on the fringes of the Detroit Wasteland in 2150, one that barely clung on to life. Built atop an ancient water treatment facility, the community survived through selling recycled water. Situated well away from the emerging settlements in the heart of the Detroit Wasteland, it remained small and impoverished as the others grew. Alice was thrown straight into the community’s business in order to survive. As soon as she was seen as being old enough, her parents were sending her down the pipes in order to keep them clear and running, taking advantage of her small size to send her places they could not get to. On top of that, she was also sent out on scavenging expeditions to recover parts to keep the plant running. The job was hazardous at the best of times, leaving Alice often fearful for what she might encounter or what might happen. In order to keep her going, her parents alternated between using coercion, guilt or out and out threats in order to get her to keep working. As could be imagined, the combination of a rough life of barely scraping by and a risky line of work bred resentment in Alice. At fifteen she ran away from home, taking a gun and a small supply of caps with her. She didn’t make it far before she was jumped by a raider gang; however, rather than trying to fight or flee, she instead surrendered and offered herself up as a recruit. While the gang scoffed at her, she none the less was willing to subject herself to their initiation rite, and fight one of the gang. When she effortlessly shanked a man nearly twice her weight, their reactions went from derisive laughter to genuine interest. Alice took to the raider lifestyle with elan, effortlessly adapting and reinventing herself. While many thought her shanking success would be a one-off, she instead proved to be remarkably resourceful and adaptable. She quickly rose through the ranks on the back of her own successes, using her scavenging skills to bring in big hauls that others had overlooked while also adapting quickly to changing circumstances. In 2173 she became the gang’s leader following the death of their previous boss; when she claimed the position, nobody was willing to challenge her. However, Black Alice (as she now called herself) was not willing to rest on her laurels. She sought to expand her territory, even at the expense of other Raiders. In short order, her gang had forcibly absorbed two others into its ranks, drastically increasing its size and holdings, as well as its reach. She used this newfound strength carefully picking the most lucrative targets while avoiding being dragged into prolonged conflicts. Despite her own successes, Alice was careful not to grow too far too fast, lest her gang outpace its resources. This growth caught the attention of other parties as well. Her gang had begun to encroach in the territory of another, lead by a man known as Durham Red. Like Black Alice, he was relatively young, but remarkably charismatic and insightful. He had wanted to build his own little empire in the Detroit Wasteland, and felt that the best way to do such would be through alliances rather than conquest. Reaching out to Black Alice, Durham Red found a receptive ear who had similar goals to his own. The pair of them met and began negotiations. Both of them reasoned that conflict between the pair of them would be futile, and likely only destroy their gangs or at least, make them vulnerable to outside predation. Instead, they saw that their best option lay in an alliance, where the pair of them would work together to bring their corner of the Detroit Wasteland to heel, building a shared empire that they could co-rule. It didn’t hurt that the pair of them were developing a mutual attraction, one that was as much physical as it was emotional. Before this alliance could come to fruition, outside forces intervened to force their hands. Reports reached both Black Alice and Durham Red of a massive force moving into the Detroit Wasteland from the North-West, a conquering army that was absorbing other raider gangs and settlements or putting them to the sword. Black Alice sent scouts to discover the truth of the matter. What they found was that this force did indeed exist, lead by a self-declared warlord calling himself Preah Khan who was apparently intent on claiming the city of Chryslus Castle for his own. Using this information, the pair of them tried to plan their next move. Neither wanted to risk destruction at the hands of this would-be conqueror, but at the same time it became clear that neither had the numbers to fight him head-on. Their goal was now less based on conquest and expansion as it was simple survival in the face of a superior foe. But once again, they would be faced with an unexpected threat. A second Warlord had entered the city, this time from the east. Known only as the Butcher, they were aggressively devouring territory as they advanced through the ruins. Seeing the very real possibility that they could end up sandwiched between two hostile forces, both Black Alice and Durham red took the leap of approaching the Butcher and offering an alliance. Their decision was based on simple necessity; Alice would reach their territories before Preah Khan would, and as such posed a more immediate threat. Despite her fearsome demeanour, the Butcher proved to be receptive to their advances. She laid out a simple offer. The pair of them would become her vassals and fight alongside her armies, while providing her with intelligence on the local situation and her own rivals. In return, they would be allowed to continue to exist and retain control of their gangs, even if they answered to her. While it was a surrender of their autonomy, both Black Alice and Durham Red saw the offer as their only way to survive, and gladly accepted it. In order to cement her control over the pair of them, the Butcher assigned one of her own lieutenants to supervise the pair of them and ensure that they followed her orders. Two-Suns was a tribal warrior, apparently descended from the same tribe as the Butcher. While keeping control over the pair of them he also was careful enough to give the pair of them enough freedom to operate that they were not hamstrung or hindered by micro-management. Through their alliance, the Butcher’s forces were able to advance through the Detroit Wasteland, carefully encircling Preah Khan’s without his realising it. Seeing an opportunity to exert her independence, Black Alice attempted to seduce Two-Suns and manipulate him into working for her. Instead, she found herself attracted to the rugged, handsome and charismatic tribal Warrior. Soon she was having an affair with him, one that was based on a mutual attraction much as her relationship with Durham Red had started. However, she was also careful enough not to let her feelings for him distract her from her goals. Using information provided by Alice and Durham, the Butcher was able to score her first major victory. Her forces ambushed an advance by Preah Khan’s own army, smashing his forces and driving him back from Chryslus Castle. As the rival warlord retreated, she pushed the initiative and drove on the castle itself, seeking to bring it under her control. This invasion very nearly succeeded, until a random sniper was able to kill the Butcher as she was on the verge of a critical breakthrough into the city itself. This sudden turn of events threw her army into chaos. Deprived of their leader, its forces broke and ran, abandoning their efforts at conquest and instead focusing on their own survival. Black Alice did what she could to preserve her forces, rallying her troops and withdrawing back to their holdings, safe from retaliation by the Chryslus Castle forces. While they had suffered losses for no real gain, she had managed to keep her forces still relatively intact. Now she needed to deal with new challenges that had presented themselves in the aftermath. The first was the discovery of her affair with Two-Suns by Durham Red. This revelation came by a most awkward means, as it came out that at the same time that Black Alice had been having an affair with the tribal warrior, he had also been carrying on one with Durham Red. As uncomfortable as this love triangle had become, however, it paled before the second issue. One of the Butcher’s closest lieutenants, a man known as Hacksaw, had claimed control of her army. He demanded that Black Alice and Durham Red accept his authority and surrender themselves to him. The pair of them disagreed with this, having no desire to yield their autonomy and declare their allegiance after having just regained their independence. To their surprise, Two-Suns agreed with their judgement, apparently having no love for Hacksaw. They sent a message back, declaring their independence and warning Hacksaw against trying to bring them to heel while Preah Khan was still a threat. Having sorted out this rivalry, the three of them also needed to sort out their own relationship. It was not easy; while both Alice and Durham had begun relationships with Two-Suns out of convenience, they both had developed an attraction to the man. Furthermore, they still were attracted and emotionally involved with each other. After much discussion, they reached an agreement to simply maintain a three-way relationship, one where all the partners would be equal. As expected, Preah Khan did not pass up the opportunity presented to him by the Butcher’s death. He instead pressed into what was now Black Alice’s forces, seeking to claim her territory for his own. In turn, she launched her own drive south towards Park Lane, hoping to take the city for herself while leaving Preah Khan and Hacksaw to fight over Chryslus Castle. As she advanced, she approached the Raider gangs and other groups her forces encountered with a simple offer; join her army peacefully or be destroyed. The majority chose the former option, allowing Black Alice to rapidly expand her reach. This move proved to be a sound one as Hacksaw and his army came under attack from an unexpected third party. A new warlord, calling themselves Bun-Bun the Destroyer, had entered the fray and started his advance into the Detroit Wasteland by going through Hacksaw’s forces. In short order, their former ally was crushed by Bun-Bun, with Hacksaw himself being killed at the Warlord’s own hands. Assessing the situation, Black Alice reached the conclusion that Bun-Bun would likely go after Preah Khan next. This was a logical deduction based on the relative positions of the two forces, as well as the newcomer’s previous path. Of course, that she was trying to make logical assumptions about a man who wore a Power Armour suit and a rabbit mascot head did make such conclusions suspect. As such, she figured that sooner or later they would have to face Bun-Bun themselves, and had to devise their own plan to eliminate him. As much as hated to admit it, their best counter to Bun-Bun came by chance. Exploration of newly-acquired territories yielded a most unexpected prize; a battered but functional T-45d Power Armour that had been stashed in a basement and sealed away at some point after the Great War. After some discussion, both Durham Red and Two-Suns agreed that Black Alice should be the one to operate the suit; she was the most technically literate of the three, and as such would likely get more out of it than they would. Alice used what resources they had at their disposal to repair and modify the suit for what she saw as an inevitable conflict. As expected, Preah Kahn’s army engaged Bun-Bun’s, with the two groups proving to be initially equally matched. However, as Bun-Bun himself came to the fore, Preah Khan’s forces proved to be incapable of stopping him as expected. He was proving to be a decisive weapon in and of himself, with their forces having no way to stop his Power Armour. Eventually, Preah Khan was forced to yield the field, letting Bun-Bun advance straight towards her forces. Knowing that she was their only effective counter, Black Alice threw herself into the forefront of their army. She personally engaged Bun-Bun, with their first clash proving to be somewhat indecisive. While her Power Armour was the superior of the two, Bun-Bun had a certain mania to him that gave him an edge. Eventually the pair of them disengaged from each other and pulled back. And while it hadn’t been the decisive blow that Black Alice had hoped for, they had, for the first time, fought Bun-Bun to a standstill. This clash would come to characterise their relationship. As much as their two armies were clashing with each other for control of the Detroit Wasteland, Bun-Bun seemed to be driven to personally defeat Black Alice. He would be at the forefont of his forces, throwing himself at her troops at every opportunity in order to lure her out. And she would in turn engage him, trying to put him down. Despite the protection that Alice’s suit offered, she was injured a number of times in these battles; her suit could only stop so much, especially when faced with Bun-Bun’s oft-frenzied Super Sledge blows. However, Alice had learned from these engagements and how to exploit Bun-Bun’s seeming obsession. She launched a new offensive, deliberately putting herself at the forefront of her forces and deliberately making herself a target. Bun-Bun in turn chose to engage her, abandoning everything else. She lured him into an ambush, pinning him down with her forces before engaging him herself. During the battle, Alice was able to rupture Bun-Bun’s fusion core; the resultant explosion destroyed its suit and incinerated its occupant. The threat of Bun-Bun was over, but his army still remained. While she had struck a blow, the truth was that Black Alice was still stuck in a quagmire, facing the forces of Preah Khan as well as what was left of Bun-Bun’s forces. Added to that, the warlords who took control of the fallen warlord’s forces proved to be more capable leaders than Bun-Bun had been. While lacking his mania and sheer physical strength, they were more tactically astute and capable, and better at looking at the big picture rather than obsessively focus on a single target. By the middle of 2187, the situation had become somewhat bleak. Black Alice’s forces had failed to make any significant advance, and instead the conflicts between the warlords had bogged down into almost static lines across the Detroit Wasteland. By this point, she, Preah Khan and the other warlords were more focused on each other with their dreams of conquest shelved indefinitely. The three settlements that had been their targets, Chryslus Castle, Park Lane and Grand Central, had largely remained untouched, and had almost become irrelevant to their conflicts. On a personal front, Black Alice had found that Durham Red was growing somewhat distant from her. While they both were involved with Two-Suns, she found that Durham Red was spending more time with the other man. When they did spend time together, their focus was ever increasingly on managing their forces without any time for their relationship. On top of that, Alice’s role at the forefront of their offensives was taking a toll on her physically. She had been injured several times, and had developed a limp that would often be visible even in her Power Armour. Their problems would come to a head in September of that year. During a break in one offensive, Black Alice and Two-Suns were engaged in discussion and planning for their next move. A lone scout from Preah Khan’s forces managed to infiltrate their perimeter and took up a position overlooking the pair. Not realising who he was observing, he took a shot at Two Suns, putting a bullet through his head. Alice was paralysed, seeing one of her lovers not only die rather violently in front of her, but to have his blood and gore splattered on her face in the process. And while the scout was driven off before he could take a second shot, the damage had been done. Two-Suns’ death was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Black Alice made it clear to Durham Red that she was simply done with everything; the warlords, the Detroit Wasteland, a war that was going nowhere and so on. She made it clear that she was going to abdicate her position and leave the ruined city. While she had no destination in mind, she also knew that she wanted to simply get away. She implored Durham Red to leave with her in the hope that they could renew what they once had together. Instead, he made it abundantly clear that he intended to stay, and see this conflict out one way or another. Realising that he was not going to budge from his position, Black Alice simply chose to leave the Detroit Wasteland on her own. Taking her Power Armour, she left the city, never to be heard from again. Personality During her rise to power, Black Alice was driven primarily by greed and the desire to have as comfortable a life as was possible in the Detroit Wasteland. Her growing up in a situation of depravation and barely scraping by made her want more from her life, which in turn drove her to become a raider. Even then, she pushed herself to climb to power in order to make herself an even more comfortable life. At the same time, she had a dislike of taking orders, largely because of the treatment she received at the hands of her parents. This further spurred her on to rise through the ranks so that she could control her own life. While she was ambitious, Black Alice was also aware enough to look for opportunities to further herself. This was what at first drove her into an alliance with Durham Red, but that alliance became complicated due to their mutual attraction. Likewise, she was willing to submit to the Butcher and join her army because she understood the realities of the situation; resisting would only lead to her destruction, which would be counter to her plans. After the Butcher’s death, she was quick to assert her independence and establish herself; by this point, the Butcher had given her a taste for an even greater power. No longer was she content with just being a raider boss, now she wanted to rule the city. Even though she was ambitious, Black Alice was not entirety selfish. Her relationship with Durham Red, while born initially born out of convenience, grew into something more genuine and fulfilling. Likewise, her attempts at seducing Two-Sun wound up turning into a surprisingly deep relationship. The death of Two-Sun would shake her deeply, especially as she realised that Durham Red had become more involved with Two-Suns with her. Towards the end of her time as a Warlord, she became somewhat depressed and prone to melancholy. Her dreams had been bogged down into a constant grind of non-stop, meaningless fighting for little actual gain, while also suffering constant pain from the injuries she had received in battle. The death of Two-Suns served as something of a full stop to her dreams, causing her to abandon her position as a warlord. At the same time, she abandoned all that came with it; the power, the wealth and the desire to conquer and instead chose to build a new life for herself. Appearance Black Alice’s appearance was very much reflective of her environment and upbringing. Like many raiders, she was perpetually covered in grime from the hazards of the wasteland, as well as the constant warfare that she was a part of. Under that, she had fair skin and narrow, dark eyes that often seemed to be deeply lined. Her hair was black, shaved on one side and left to hang in an uneven mess. Over her years as a raider and warlord, she accumulated a number of scars, and eventually developed a prominent limp. Equipment During her time as a raider and then later a Warlord, Black Alice had access to a considerable arsenal of weapons. The most distinctive piece in her inventory, however, was an extensively customised T-45d Power Armour, known as the War Rider. Salvaged from a ruin in the Detroit Wasteland, the suit featured additional scrap metal welded to its exterior. This served not only to improve the overall level of protection the suit offered, but also to give it a fierce appearance. Black Alice would personally operate the suit for most of her career as a Warlord, and took it with her when she stood down and left the ruined city. Category:Raiders